Toronto and Maple Leafs

[rams80]

And to rams80's post..... Over the past 4 years? No. Even when the team spun out of control last season games were still sold out. I will admit if the team was on par with Tampa or Baltimore (sorry) then no, I don't think all fans would still be there, but a good majority would be.

And before that....?

(See here's the difference between me and most of my countrymen, I think: I think in terms of time frames that are much longer than your standard Presidential term; 4 years is an eyeblink.)

[speedy]

And to rams80's post..... Over the past 4 years? No. Even when the team spun out of control last season games were still sold out. I will admit if the team was on par with Tampa or Baltimore (sorry) then no, I don't think all fans would still be there, but a good majority would be.

And before that....?

(See here's the difference between me and most of my countrymen, I think: I think in terms of time frames that are much longer than your standard Presidential term; 4 years is an eyeblink.)

Well I'm only 19, so forgive my year range. If you want to go back in time I'll present you with Roger Clemens' 20 K game on April 29, 1986. In '86 hey finished with a 95-66 record aswell as a trip to the World Series, as I'm sure all of you baseball fans are aware of the 1986 Series ( ). But back to the Clemens' game, around 23,000 fans attended that game. I don't care what Red Sox Nation says, the fan base has never been as big as it is now. It's massive. The Sox have have had 4 losing seasons (not including the 1994 strike year) since the Impossible Dream season of '67. But ticket sales never matched up to the product on the field. It's hard to tell what the future holds for Red Sox Nation, but I don't think support for the team will slow down aslong as they keep up the on the field success they've been accustomed to since the Yaz occupied left field.

[bfen29]

The parallel between the Yankees and Maple Leafs is valid in terms of their relative importance within their countries: people either love or hate both teams. Neutral ground doesn't exist.

Now, if only the leafs could win 15 more Stanley Cups....

[Snazel]

I love Toronto. I think its an incredible city. I lived there for ten years and I have great admiration for the city and the people who live there.

I can stress enough, how much I love Toronto, its one of the great cities of the world and I've been to New York, Paris, London, Mexico City, Los Angeles and many more

Having said that, I can see why people hate Toronto. It goes beyond hating "the big guy". It's embedded in politics and the ecomonic structure of Canada. I won't bore you with a lecture on that, but if someone wants to discuss it further, I'll offer more opinion on the subject.

Still, the Leafs have every right to that logo, after all they made that logo a central symbol of their team, long before the flag came into existence. True, the Maple Leaf had always been part of the coat of arms, but it was not really a central icon for "Canada" until the flag was released in '67.

My main issue with the Leafs, is not the city they come from, the logo they sprout, or even the fact that HNiC fauns over them, and favors them like a beloved elder son.

No, my main issue is with a small minority of Leaf fans. There's a small segment of Leaf fans out there that adore violence (when their "star" is dishing it out anyway), prefer players like Tie Domi, or a more skilled and valuable European player, and just generally subscribe to thug hockey. Indeed, I'd argue Leaf's obsession with this style of play has set them back for decades. A little more damn finesse, skating and scoring touch, would have done most Leaf teams in the last 30 years a lot of good.

[winghaz]

My understanding of why many Candians -- especially in the western provinces -- despise Toronto is because Toronto APPEARS to try and dominate Canadian society, Canadian politics, all things Canadian. Whether or not that's true, I just don't know.

Part of it may be that Toronto has a New York state of mind. People in New York City are perceived to have absolutely no feeling at all for the rest of the country, except maybe its surroundings in the East (Boston, Philly, etc.). Maybe that's the way Toronto is about the rest of Canada.

As for New York City being seen as representing the U.S. and Toronto being seen as representing Canada, that's probably only in the eyes of non-North Americans, New Yorkers and Torontoans (or Torontoites, or whatever they're called). Believe me, those of us in fly-over land know there is a heck of a lot to the U.S. beyond NYC and the same with Canada beyond Toronto. After all, the Grand Canyon isn't in NYC and Lake Louise isn't in Toronto.

[Snazel]

In Canada it can go beyond politics and cultural dominance, it can right to the root of the sport itself.

The Leafs are the "media darlings" of the CBC and HNiC, and Leaf fans exist in many pockets of the country, and tend to fail to support the NHL in their hometowns (unless the Leafs come to town).

Also Ontario and Quebec, play and teach hockey differently (or at least they used to in my day). There were two very different styles at work, and this was often a mirror, or an allegory for the cultural friction between the two.

So I guess it does boil down to politics really. There's also a small segment of Leaf fans, that give their fan base a bad name. They are loud, they honk vociferiously and they tend to applaud at extreme violence in the game, and embrace the Leafs' thuggish history, as part of the team's (and their own) identity.

Also the sports radio network in Toronto, is so shamelessly a giant bicycle horn for the Leafs that it gets annoying. Their annual cycle is to pump the Leafs up, way beyond reasonable expectations, then when reality comes crashing down, incite anger amongst all the fans, and pick two or three unpopular players or coaches and drive them out of town.

Then when the new season comes, repeat this cycle all over again.

I have great respect for the Leafs tradition, history and especially for some of its legendary players. I love the Leafs/Habs rivalry. In my ridiculous opinion, there is a small minority of Leaf fans, (and some Leaf media types) that really make other hockey fans dislike them, and assume all Leaf fans are that way.

Toronto, I love it, but it can be inherently a really snobby place. If I could, I would post editorials I remember in the Toronto Star, that would take pot shots at American cities, American ignorance over hockey, make fun of French Canadians, or make fun of Calgary, or just generally perpetuate a myth that Toronto was the center of elite-Canadian culture and everyone else was dumber, dirtier, had more crime and should be mocked and villified.

This is all in the sports pages by the way. I won't even get into media messages played in "news media". I will cite on example: David Pederson was running for Premiere of Ontario, and once featured a campaign that said "Ontario is the engine that drives all of Canada".

This is the Premiere of the country saying this, and people in Ontario wonder why others in Canada feel Ontario has an over-inflated sense of importance and generally viewed as egocentric.

Damn, this too preachy to be a legit post. My apologies, just wanted to offer my wooden nickel.

[Gothamite]

My apologies, just wanted to offer my wooden nickel.

What's the exchange rate on that, again?

[Snazel]

What's the exchange rate on that, again?

A wooden nickel from Snazel will get you exactly one peso at a Pumas soccer match in Mexico City.

Now this is pretty terrible, until you consider that the Pumas are an incredible franchise, that are worthy of your praise and admiration.

Anyone who says this is wrong, and that it is in fact the Aguilas (America) that are worthy of your admiration, are souless and not to be trusted.

Wooden nickels from Snazel, will sometimes get you beat up on a Dundas street car stop, so don't ever try to reedeem them at the TTC. My advice here is just to jam about 97 pennies into the fare box, then stare defiantly at the driver as if to say: "What? I counted every one of those, it's a full fare".

Any semi-impoverished Torontonian who does not admit to doing this, is lying.

To bring this back to the topic at hand, I do think the dislike for the Leafs, also crosses the border. I know a few Devils fan on this side of the border, that hate the Leafs, almost as much as they hate the Rangers and Flyers. So its not just the Canadian social/political schema at work here.

People just like to hate the Leafs, let's face it, they were a goon-team for a long time a while back, I believe this has a lot to do with it.

[Roger Clemente]

I was think of something that has been bothering me. It always seems that every time someone trys to put red into a Toronto sports team or a maple leaf or something, that it always gets critizied. Personally I think that Toronto in its self is a symbol of Canada and that teams in Vancouver or Calgary or Halifiax dont have "symbolic canadian things" ie red and maple leafs... because those cities are not symbols of Canada. Someone might say that New York is a symbol of the US but NYC is its own identity in its self but then again I supose that the Rangers, Yankees, Mets and Knicks are all symbols of the US soo...

Can anyone think of some other reasons why Toronto is always critizied?

"_______________" any other places that are like Toronto in that way?

Cat Eyes - Josh

Is the city of Toronto red? And by that, I mean, are it's buildings, roads, grass, trees, people, water, etc, the actual color red? If so, what the hell makes you think Toronto is in a better entitlement of using the color red than any other Canadian team?

How is Toronto a symbol? How would you portray all of Toronto in a symbol or a logo?

The only criticisms I've ever seen regarding Toronto and incorporating a maple leaf into a logo is simply just the fact that they do not look good. The Blue Jays current identity, while it is certainly possible to incorporate a maple leaf (that isn't red), I find it just isn't necessary and the Jays look find without it.

The Raptors alternate logo, with the TR on a maple leaf, I feel it is unnecessary because in no way does the logo reflect anything Raptor-esque, just Canadian-esque. IMO, logos should first support the team's identity, THEN the geographic identity (unless the team's identity IS the geographic identity, like the New York Islanders or Houston Texans). However, there are many good logos that do incorporate both team identity and geographic identity nicely, like the Dallas Stars shoulder logo or the Milwaukee Brewers main logo, which I find are often the best examples.

The criticisms against a Toronto team's use of red is mostly because almost all Toronto teams have always used blue as their primary color. The three primary Toronto teams that have been around the longest are the Argonauts, Maple Leafs and Blue Jays, and all of them used blue and white as their schemes and that was most it. The Raptors came along and destroyed that and now Toronto FC is around now, but both those teams are TRYING to niche themselves as "Canada's Team" is their sports which is something the Argos, Leafs and Jays never really tried (and while the Jays certainly could if they wanted to now, I like that they aren't because it just reinforces the idea that people from Toronto feel that Canada centres around Toronto. (Which, economically, may be true, but to say that any one city is more important or iconic than another is pure conceit).

And, as far as other Canadian cities and their identity with color goes, what about Montreal? Pretty much all of their teams have used red, white and blue as the basis for colors (Canadiens, Alouettes, Expos, even the short lived QMJHL Rocket who now play in P.E.I.)

--Roger "Time?" Clemente.

P.S. No offence, but you don't deserve the smiley in your signature.

[JQK]

As a pure sports fan, i simply post this...

Blue Jays Suck

Red Sox Suck

Let's Go Yankees.

:-)

[Snazel]

The Univeristy of Toronto's moniker is the "Blues", and Maple Leafs baseball team played with blue as their primary color for decades. Blue had traditionally been Toronto's color, heck even the city's flag is blue.

The Raptors are just off-the-chart ugly, on so many levels. It's a little better now, than during the purple-Barney days, but not by much. I think the Raptors get critisized, because the team was given the name because the ex-Premiere of the state had a young son who thought it would be a good idea to name a billion-dollar asset after a dinosaur.

Then they tried to "cash in" with a cartoon logo and the latest "Pantone of the Year".

It was farcical from the start and its been pretty hard to take that franchise seriously ever since.

It didn't help that both Canadian teams were duped into a ridiculous expansion contract, that pretty much doomed both of them to five years of incredibly bad basketball.

It's not just the "red", its the fact that the Raptors have largely urinated over Toronto's sports traditions, in a weak attempt to gain mass appeal.

[New_Member]

This is an interesting topic, although the postings on this thread are a bit ridiculous.

The original post claimed Toronto sportsteams represent Canada. To me this issue is pretty straight forward. It is true in the case of baseball and basketball where the only Canadian team is from Toronto and false (and probably insulting to other Canadians) in terms of other sports.

Americans clearly view the Blue Jays and Raptors as "the Canadian teams". In this case it represents Canada. I am an American, so I can't speak for how (non-Torontonian) Canadians feel. However in my mind if a guy from Saskatoon considers the Blue Jays "his team" then the Blue Jays may just well be Canada's team. So to me red, maple leaves, beavers, ice or whatever you want to call Canadian national symbols are OK for those two team's jerseys. If thats not the case, and other Canadians mostly loathe the Jays and Raptors, than those teams only represent Canada in the US (and probably the rest of the world).

In the case of the NHL and CFL I don't feel Toronto has a claim on Canada. It's pretty obvious why... there are other Canadian teams. Because most fans in Western Canada choose to root for their hometeam rather than the Leafs, the Leafs can't make a claim on all Canadian fans. As an American, I can say that the Leafs don't represent Canada, because we're not idiots and we realize there are other teams. Plus if I had to come up with a hockey team representing Canada I'd choose either Ottawa (because its the capital) or Montreal (because they are the Yankees of hockey).

Now as for winghaz saying :

"As for New York City being seen as representing the U.S. and Toronto being seen as representing Canada, that's probably only in the eyes of non-North Americans, New Yorkers and Torontoans (or Torontoites, or whatever they're called). Believe me, those of us in fly-over land know there is a heck of a lot to the U.S. beyond NYC and the same with Canada beyond Toronto. After all, the Grand Canyon isn't in NYC and Lake Louise isn't in Toronto."

I think he's totally missing the point. Anti-New Yorkerism aside, New York does represent the US. He may not like that, but its not up to him. As he seems to admit, if foreigners think of NY when they think of the US, then its a symbol and NY represents us. We may like to think of the other great parts of the US, but foreigners don't tend to think of the Grand Canyon or some mega-church in Houston when they think of Uncle Sam. They think of the Big Apple, the White House and Hollywood. We can't control it. So its a symbol.

The same goes for Toronto... Now it would be nice if New Yorkers and Torontonians are a little less arrogant about it (I'm a New Yorker and our arrogance annoys even me). Although I find it ironic and hypocritical (but also telling) that the same Americans who criticize NY are often the ones who give the US its global reputation for arrogance and self-importance. You can't have it both ways fellas.